Wills – Election 2010

ALP 22.4%

Incumbent MP
Kelvin Thomson, since 1996.

Geography
Northern Melbourne. Wills covers most of the City of Moreland and a small part of Moonee Valley council area. Key suburbs include Brunswick, Moreland, Coburg, Pascoe Vale, Strathmore, Oak Park, Glenroy, Hadfield and Fawkner.

History
Wills was created for the 1949 election as part of the expansion of the House of Representatives. Apart from a period in the early 1990s, it has always been held by the Labor Party.

Wills was first won in 1949 by the ALP’s Bill Bryson. He had previously held the seat of Bourke from 1943 to 1946. Bryson served as a member of the ALP until the split of 1955, when he joined the new Labor Party (Anti-Communist), which became the Democratic Labor Party. He lost the seat at the 1955  election.

The seat was won in 1955 by the ALP’s Gordon Bryant. Bryant served as a minister in the Whitlam government from 1972 to 1975, and retired in 1980.

Wills was won in 1980 by former President of the ACTU, Bob Hawke. Hawke was in the rare position of a politician who was already a significant national figure in his own right before entering Parliament, and he was immediately appointed to the Labor frontbench. Hawke failed in an attempt to replace Bill Hayden as Labor leader in 1982, but was successful in another attempt on the very day that Malcolm Fraser called the 1983 election, and he won that election, becoming Prime Minister.

Hawke won re-election at the 1984, 1987 and 1990 elections, but in 1991 he was defeated in a caucus leadership ballot by Paul Keating, and he resigned from Parliament in 1992.

The 1992 Wills by-election was a remarkable campaign, with 22 candidates standing. The seat was won by former footballer Phil Cleary on a hard-left socialist platform. Cleary’s victory was overturned in the High Court due to his status as a public school teacher on unpaid leave, shortly before the 1993 election. He was re-elected at the 1993 election, and held the seat until his defeat in 1996.

Wills was won back for the ALP in 1996 by Kelvin Thomson, a Victorian state MP since 1988. Thomson was appointed to the Federal Labor shadow ministry in 1997, and remained on the frontbench for the next decade. He was forced to step down as Shadow Attorney General in 2007 after it was discovered that Thomson had written a reference for fugitive and accused drug dealer Tony Mokbel. He has been a backbencher ever since.

Candidates

  • Claude Tomisich (Liberal)
  • Kelvin Thomson (Labor) – Member for Wills since 1996.
  • Daniel Mumby (Family First)
  • Craig Isherwood (Citizens Electoral Council)
  • Trent Hawkins (Socialist Alliance)
  • Paul Robertson (Democrats)
  • Mark Riley (Greens)

Political situation
This is a very safe Labor seat in terms of a Labor/Liberal contest. The seat includes some very strong areas for the Greens in the southern end of the seat, and if the Greens were to overtake the Liberal Party it could become much more marginal, but that won’t be happening in 2010.

2007 result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Kelvin Thomson ALP 49,050 56.89 +3.07
Claude Tomisich LIB 21,166 24.55 -4.15
David Collis GRN 11,912 13.82 +0.82
Edward Clarke DEM 2,005 2.33 +0.91
Ihab Kelada FF 1,233 1.43 -0.12
Zane Alcorn SA 624 0.72 -0.34
Craig Isherwood CEC 227 0.26 -0.19

2007 two-candidate-preferred result

Candidate Party Votes % Swing
Kelvin Thomson ALP 62,432 72.41 +5.51
Claude Tomisich LIB 23,785 27.59 -5.51

Booth breakdown
Booths in Wills have been divided into five areas around key suburbs in the seat. The ALP’s two-party preferred vote is over 70% in most of the seat, except for a 63% vote in Pascoe Vale-Strathmore. The Greens vote is highest in Brunswick, followed by Coburg, with the lowest vote along the northern end of the seat.

 

Polling booths in Wills. Brunswick in red, Coburg in yellow, Pascoe Vale-Strathmore in blue, Glenroy-Hadfield in green, Fawkner in orange.

 

Voter group GRN % ALP 2CP % Total votes % of votes
Pascoe Vale-Strathmore 8.92 63.27 17,920 20.78
Brunswick 23.26 79.10 16,749 19.43
Coburg 14.37 76.43 16,158 18.74
Glenroy-Hadfield 6.90 72.95 11,894 13.80
Fawkner 6.06 76.49 5,822 6.75
Other votes 16.53 69.97 17,674 20.50
Two-party preferred votes at the 2007 federal election in Wills.
Greens votes at the 2007 federal election in Wills.

16 COMMENTS

  1. Kelvin Thomson is in very strong position in Wills because he is a hard-working and well-regarded local, with environmental credentials par excellence.

  2. Like Batman, the Greens aren’t really a big threat here yet. Strong vote in Brunswick might make the state seat vulnerable, but they really peter out north of Bell Street.

  3. Thompson has attracted publicity for his views on immigration but he has other novel ideas including replacement of the current adversary legal system by an European style investigative system

  5. One of the Strathmore booths.

    The Strathmore/Essendon area has always been one of the more affluent Liberal voting parts of the north-western suburbs. You can see the surrounding booths in Moonee Valley council are relatively good for the Liberals too.

  7. This is an interesting one. Kelvin Thompson has been an excellent local member, but his views on immigration are divisive, and indeed vote-losing among people like me. Forget the Libs, they have no chance, but I would suggest the Green vote west of Pascoe Vale Rd (i.e. Strathmore) may be much greater than everyone is predicting. Thompson will probably win again, but very likely from Greens 2nd not the Libs.

  8. Indeed the Libs have no chance, back in 1996 I spoke to a group of Liberal campaigners at a polling booth who cheerfully confessed they were actually Labor voters and were just doing this to help their nephew who was the candidate!

  9. Hi Geoff – take your point. My father was quietly told by on the one of the Liberals handing out (that he felt obliged to do this as he was president of a local Liberal branch!) but that he would be voting for Kelvin Thomson because of his excellent local work on Essendon Airport, getting heavy traffic of Pascoe Vale Rd, improving Moonee Ponds Creek environs etc. To Manley – Kelvin Thomson has a 14 point plan to stabilise Australia’s population at a sustainable level and improve our quality of life and protect our biodiversity – migration policy is only one part of this plan. Kelvin Thomson has received strong community support for his population plan and this is now being adopted by PM Julia Gillard. Kelvin Thomson has consistently argued for a doubling our refugee intake to 20,000 – a policy recently adopted by the Greens – and advocated a new category of climate refugee.

  10. I agree Kelvin Thomson is a good local member. However, he is still bound by what the ALP caucus decide and no matter his personal views on the environment, refugees, population targets and the like he does not carry much weight in Canberra. The real test of commitment for example on refugees is whether ALP members like Kelvin will vote on the floor of Parliament against a caucus/cabinet decision. Going on his record he will not do so. That is why people in Wills who want to take a stand for progressive policies in the national arena need to vote for the Greens candidate Mark Riley. Demographically, Wills is changing…..the Greens vote is steadily growing northwards…..and if not in 2010 one can expect the Greens to outpoll the Liberals in Wills in 2013.

  11. I’m hearing mixed reports about the Democrats… are they fielding a candidate in Wills?

  13. I am volunteering for Libs at Temple Park Senior Citz please come and say hello I will have had a very boring day!!

  15. 19.4 % for the Greens. I wonder if the proposed re-distribution will help: it straightens that little dogleg in the bottom right hand corner, and pulls in a bit of north fitzroy from Melbourne.

    I didn’t vote for him but Thomson is a good and courageous local member. Think it will take his retirement to make this seat interesting.

  16. I’d like to hear from those claiming Kelvin Thomson is a great local member. What exactly has he done for Wills?

    In Brunswick, he has been largely silent on the infill and higher-density development debate which is raging. Promotional material left in my letterbox talks about his ‘achievements’ in places like the Pentridge and Kodak sites in Coburg. Who exactly is buying this?

    1. The Pentridge development is completely unsympathetic to the history and aesthetics of the site. Instead, it’s McMansions crammed in between the old bluestone walls.
    2. NOTHING has happened at the Kodak site. What exactly is he claiming credit for?

    Kelvin Thomson is a limp party hack of the ALP, and I am tired of people continually defending his ‘good work’.

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